Joe Sports

It's less than a month until college basketball starts official practice. In other words, we're getting closer to the best time of year.

Blue Ribbon, the most comprehensive preseason publication available*, has just released its Top 25 and its four All-America teams (Note*: I must confess to writing 17 team previews for Blue Ribbon, so I'm a little biased. My typing fingers also are tired from writing stories that are 2-3 times as long as other magazines' previews. It should be at bookstores and available online within a few weeks).

On Tuesday, Illinois coach Ron Zook made it sound like junior middle linebacker Martez Wilson (who missed the Illinois State game with a stinger) was raring to go as the Illini began to prepare for their Sept. 26 Big Ten opener at Ohio State. "Martez was out in a red jersey, running around and he was biting at the bit," Zook said of Monday's practice.

On Thursday, Illinois announced that Wilson will miss the rest of the season. He's going to have surgery to repair a herniated disk in his neck.

The school issued this statement from Wilson: "Of course, I am upset and frustrated, but you can't control injuries. The biggest thing for me is that I have a lot of support around me with
my family, the coaches and my teammates and they will help me get through this.

One of these days, we're going to break down Northwestern's figuratively sunny recruiting future in men's basketball. But for now, we're going to discuss the literally sunny outlook for NU football.

Weather.com claims it’ll be nearly 80 degrees and sunny at 4 p.m. Tuesday when Northwestern starts practicing in earnest for Saturday’s 6 p.m. game at Syracuse. In other words, it’ll be perfect weather that the players will be remembering fondly in a month or two when the Lake Michigan chill hits them.

So where will the Wildcats be on this awesome afternoon? Sweating profusely inside Trienens Hall in an effort to prepare for the Orange’s Carrier Dome.

In varying degrees of pain both mental and physical, the Bears showered in Lambeau Field's dimly light visiting locker room, stuffed themselves back into their suits and climbed onto the buses to make the short plane ride home.

To be certain, the 21-15 season-opening loss to Green Bay was long on disappointments. Jay Cutler's career-high 4 interceptions...the offense's inability to punch in the ball on second-and-goal from the 3-yard line in the fourth quarter...the defense's inability to force a turnover as the Bears entered the night with the league's longest takeaway streak at 25 games in a row.

From the press box at Ryan Field, which rises eight stories above the Evanston earth, on a clear day you can see the boats on gorgeous Lake Michigan and the majestic skyline in downtown Chicago.

I bring this up because our press-box view also affords us the luxury of ignoring the Ryan Field scoreboard and evaluating a game on its merits instead of its tallies. As Northwestern led Eastern Michigan at halftime by a 21-3 count on Saturday, we couldn’t help but notice that the Wildcats and Eagles deserved to be a lot closer than the score.

Hey CatsLand,

Senior cornerback Sherrick McManis, regarded as an all-Big Ten candidate, is listed as doubtful for Saturday's home game against Eastern Michigan (11 a.m., Big Ten Network) with a leg injury.

For parts of fall camp, in a manner similar to senior defensive end Corey Wootton, McManis took it easy to accommodate a healing injury. It's not known if this continues the trend, or if "Batman" tweaked something during last week's opener against Towson.

If McManis can't make his 31st consecutive start, then look for junior Justan Vaughn to handle his corner. He started the first two games last year before suffering a season-ending shoulder injury. Vaughn celebrated his return to the field last week with an interception.

The rest of the report:

When done right, Robbie Gould’s job is accomplished in 1.35 seconds or less. That’s the optimal “operation time” from the moment Patrick Mannelly snaps the ball until Gould sends it spinning toward the goalposts.

“How it all starts is, as soon as (holder) Brad (Maynard) lifts his finger to go catch the ball, I start through my sequence,” Gould said, “Those guys have done a great job. The only reason I’ve had a lot of success is because of Pat and Brad. There’s a reason they’ve been around for 12-13 years now and doing the job that they’re doing _ but being the best at their job, too.”

So it turns out Northwestern true freshman running back Arby Fields (no, his name isn’t Arby because it sounds like RB; it's his father's name as well) is catching grief from his teammates and coaches for not hydrating properly before his college debut.

Fields played just 11 snaps against Towson -- and rushed 6 times for 48 yards and 2 touchdowns -- before cramping up and calling it a day. He told reporters afterward that he only drank 1 or 2 Gatorades the night before the game.

Hey gang,

Short of QB Tim Tebow getting hurt during Florida's glorified scrimmage against Charleston Southern (the Gators beat their FCS opponent by a 62-3 count), nothing could have been more surprising in Week 1 than defending Heisman Trophy champ Sam Bradford wrecking his shoulder in Oklahoma season-opening loss to BYU.

That throws a wrench into the national-championship picture, though there's still time for the Sooners to get back into the race.

Anyway, we're not going to spend a lot of time reminding you of stuff you can see done to death on SportsCenter. This is the spot where we're going to put the True Standings each week.

Ron Zook said Sunday that All-American receiver Arrelious Benn's ankle injury wasn't as bad as originally feared. He considers him "probable" for Saturday's home opener against Football Championship Subdivision foe Illinois State.

Running backs Jason Ford and Daniel Dufrene also are considered probable with their sprained ankles.

After hurting his left ankle on the third play of Illinois' 37-9 loss to Missouri, Benn had X-rays at the Edward Jones Dome that showed no break." Zook also feared a high-ankle sprain, but that's apparently not the case.

"I don't think you take a chance on a guy, particularly in the first game, and he's as good a player as he is," Zook said.

Other errata: